Yield percentages allow you, the cook, to increase your knowledge in ordering and figuring out food cost. The yield itself is the percentage of the specified product that is usable. For example, bananas, at a 68% yield, means that you throw away 32% of the banana (the peel), use the other 68% of it, and obviously pay for the whole thing.

This is very useful to know for when you are cooking for a large banquet and don't want to overorder the food. You can use this chart to figure out how much usable product you're going to need and buy accordingly.

The same works for figuring food costs. Once you know how much of a product you need for the meal, you can use these percentages to find out how much that actually cost you. We welcome your questions about this chart in our Message Boards.

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